Windy days!

The end of November (through the middle of January, according to last year's weather experiences) brings a ton of blustery days. Perhaps "blustery" isn't a term adequate enough to describe the pure force and power of these winds. From my years of living out on the bluff of the Strait of Juan de Fuca/Dungeness Bay, I can offer an educated guess that winds blow at a constant speed of around 40mph, with terrifying gusts up to what I would estimate at 60mph (which last around 30 seconds or so, every few minutes). It makes for noisy days and nights, increased damage in roofing, unpleasant walks (or sprints, in my case) in between the academic and dormitory buildings, and scary bending of windows in our comedor (dining hall) and aulas (classrooms).

This chair in our Suite's living room received some "tierra", or debris,
 that falls from the cracks in the ceiling when it's really windy... (look closely!)
...apparently including whole leaves, among other particles!

Here's a short video of the "normal" winds we have been experiencing this week, as seen from the front of Bean's and my Suite:

The wind yesterday knocked our power out for about 3-4 hours during the afternoon, during which time I took advantage of the opportunity to get away from my computer in the Fun-Times Room and escape down to a slightly warmer climate in San Rafael, to run errands (among which was picking up luggage and students, since they're moving back to campus for next week, as it is the last week and they'll be on campus for Debriefing after they return from this long weekend's ecology fieldtrip to the Pacific).

Then last night, as I was waiting up for students to return to campus from their host families, the power went down again around 9:45pm, and wasn't restored until around 10:00am this morning! Turns out, a tree fell across the road (see photo below that I snapped this morning), taking down a power line and pole with it last night. it took until early this morning to clear the tree from the road, and then they were working on getting the power line fixed of course until later this morning. It takes about twice as long to get things like this fixed around here as it would where I was raised (which is small-town, USA). Due to the felled tree, around 11pm, we got a call to go pick up one of our students down the road, where her host family got stopped by the road blockage. Oh, and day (or a night) in the life of 24/7 coverage at the CRC!

The roadway, after the felled tree was chainsawed up and removed from the roadway.

If you look closely, you can see the power lines up above the tree debris,
which have been restored to their rightful, above-ground place.